Week 3: Game

World of Goo

Ok so I’ve been doing a lot of the “Game” blog posts, but I can’t help it! They’re all so good! How can I pass up homework that involves playing Braid and World of Goo 😛 And it’s hard to find time to blog about all three topics, although I assure you I do at least read/think about them! (The emergence paper was quite interesting, and so was the falling sand game… actually that falling sand game is probably responsible for why I suddenly have a lot less time…) Anyway, Goo!

Prototype?

Playing the prototype was pretty interesting, I had briefly played the original before doing this course, and was unaware that World Of Goo had originated like it did. With the newer version of the game, much of what you would expect from a properly developed game (as opposed to a quick flash game made in a week): things that were added included better graphics and sound, as well as actual levels (each with its various own goals, as opposed to the prototype’s simple build-it-high objective). The full version also includes somewhat of a story (albeit a strange one), that ties all the levels together.

Gooeyness

I think the resonance of the game and the gooey feeling that the game promotes are very much linked. I’m not quite sure how it does it exactly, but it seems that all the little things add up to give the game its feeling. For example the controls: from the simple gooeyness of the cursor, to how you drag the goo into place with a satisfying pop (complete with a little squeak that just seems so right coming from a little ball of goo), to even the way the camera pans around the screen –  the game just emanates goo. On a larger scale, the physics of the game is definitely a large factor: the way the multitude of different types of goo interact with each other and the environment is really well done: the way wind blows goo this way and that, how the larger the goo-structure the more it is affected by the wind, how little goo balls bob up and down in the water (or even whole goo-structures!), or even how the goo squashes or catches fire or just falls and bounces – all of it is a delight to watch and interact with, and all of it seems so… gooey.